


Charade

by MorganaNK



Category: Inspector Lynley - All Media Types, Inspector Lynley Mysteries (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 07:18:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7705576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganaNK/pseuds/MorganaNK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just after Wishes Were Horses... Tommy is sitting beside a hospital bed again and it gives him too much time to think</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charade

**Author's Note:**

> Property of Elizabeth George and the BBC, no copyright infringement intended

I slump tiredly into the uncomfortable plastic chair at Barbara’s bedside, let my head fall into my hands, and sigh deeply. I have spent far too much time sitting in hospital rooms over the last few days, first with Helen and now...

All this sitting and waiting is giving me time to think, and my mind is hell bent on making sure I think about things that I do my damnedest not to on a day-to-day basis. 

I know that I should never have married Helen. She was my friend and that is how she should have stayed. I know that I don’t love her, well not how a husband is supposed to, and I know that I have been using her, but the alternative to that is something I don’t want to think about. The alternative is Barbara.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I should have married Barbara. She is also my friend, but I do love her, completely. Loving Barbara is something I need to keep locked away inside of me as I cannot risk losing her from my life. Besides, Barbara and I would never work; I can’t imagine her fitting into the Lord Asherton side of my world, there is no way she would want to try. 

Over the last few days I feel as if I have been pushed and pulled from pillar to post. Because of Helen and Barbara, I have gone from hate to despair and every emotion in-between. Helen has lost our baby and then left me; she knew that my heart wasn’t in the relationship, although I tried to be the husband that she needed and to keep the depth of my feelings for Barbara hidden. And Barbara? Well she is lying here, a shotgun wound in her abdomen and if she wakes… no, _when_ she wakes, I will be to her what I have always been, because to be anything else is just too difficult for both of us.

My whole life is a charade; I’ve forgotten who the real Tommy Lynley is.


End file.
